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Published: 2006

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ISBN-13: 9780542720765

Metropolitan Planning Organizations (or MPOs) are at the forefront of the transportation planning process, making decisions about transportation investments at a time when transportation planning goes beyond issues of mobility to influence patterns of growth and economic activity, provide accessibility to land, and address non-transportation-specific issues such as air quality, environmental resources consumption, social equity, 'smart growth', or safety and security. This thesis examines the decision-making mechanisms involved in this process. The first chapter provides a review of the history of MPOs and the determining factors and events that led to their current structure. The second chapter details the different structural components and decision-making bodies of MPOs. The third, and final, chapter provides a comparative analysis of the structure and decision-making bodies of a sample of sixty-five MPOs, looking for commonalities or differences. The analysis of the sample MPOs established that two basic premises apply to all MPOs. The first is that they are all structured with professional staff and technical committees, intended to inform the decision-making process in a professional and unbiased way. The second is that bias finds its way into the decision-making process because key decisions are made at the Policy Board level, where elected representatives play a determining role, leaving MPOs subject to the political fluctuations of electoral cycles. The thesis concludes that as new technologies come into play, the complexity of multi-modal, multi jurisdictional, and multi-technological systems will only increase, as will the role of Metropolitan Planning Organizations. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).